Sometimes I do political science (abortion edition)

A couple weeks ago I presented our latest research on abortion at the Midwest Political Science Association annual meeting.  You can download the paper here.  Rather than just posting the abstract, I uploaded the paper to Claude Pro (I subscribed this month and I am loving it) and asked it to write a blog post for me.  Here it is…

Title: New Research Reveals How Personal Experiences Shape Abortion Attitudes in Post-Roe America

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion has become a highly salient and divisive political issue. While general public opinion on abortion had been quite stable for decades prior to Dobbs, the new restrictive state laws being passed in many states have put the real-world impact of abortion policy in the spotlight.

Our new research, based on a September 2023 national survey, reveals that personal experiences play an important role in shaping attitudes on abortion, even after controlling for the major political and demographic factors that typically predict views on this issue. Here are some of our key findings:

• Women who have had an abortion are the most supportive of abortion access and strongly identify as pro-choice. A full 74% of women who have had an abortion identify as pro-choice, compared to 51% of women overall. Women who know someone who has had an abortion are also distinctively pro-choice.
• Young women under 30 are much more likely than older women to identify as pro-choice (67% vs 51% of women overall) and to believe abortion should be legal. Young women seem particularly attuned to how state abortion restrictions could impact them.
• In contrast, being a parent predicts less support for abortion access. Mothers are less likely than women without children to identify as pro-choice (46% vs 62%) and both moms and dads score lower on support for legal abortion compared to their counterparts without kids.
• Knowing someone who has had an abortion is correlated with greater support for abortion access for both women and men. A full 58% of men who know someone who has had an abortion identify as pro-choice, compared to 44% of men overall.

In summary, while partisanship and religion remain major drivers of abortion attitudes, it’s clear that people’s lived experiences also significantly shape their views, even after controlling for demographics. With more people directly impacted by state abortion restrictions post-Dobbs, these personal experiences may take on even greater political significance going forward. Policymakers should take note that key groups like young women and those who have had or know someone who has had an abortion are especially supportive of protecting abortion access.

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Steve here again.  And here’s a few helpful charts (Thelast two are regression models, showing the relative impacts of the various factors. Right of the 0 midline is more pro-choice. Each line is a point estimate with error bars– if it does not cross 0, it is statistically significant).